<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Taking Stock of Passing Time by brokenmemento</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903450">Taking Stock of Passing Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento'>brokenmemento</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Harlivy Week 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harley Quinn (Cartoon 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Choices, F/F, Falling In Love, Introspection, Season 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:41:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,382</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25903450</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivy’s point of view and where she contemplates the roads not taken. How might life be different?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Pamela Isley &amp; Harleen Quinzel, Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel, Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Harlivy Week 2020 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879858</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Taking Stock of Passing Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Prompt: Harley Quinn Show<br/>Song Pairing: "Void" by The Neighbourhood<br/>Art by: Kazza on the #Harlivy discord server</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> ~But what if we could stop, pause to take stock of each precious moment before it passes? Might we then see the endless forks in the road that have shaped a life? And, seeing those choices, choose another path?-Dana Scully, The X-Files~ </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Path One: No Kiss Subterfuge  </em>
</p><p>Ivy has made plenty of mistakes in her life. No one gets to be one of the most notorious villains or eco-terrorists without some shit being behind them. </p><p>Before, it wasn’t something she dwelled on. Things were the way they were. She didn’t beat herself up over things she couldn’t change. </p><p>But then came Harley. </p><p>Frustrating, chaotic, maddeningly wonderful Harley that single-handedly supported the coffee table business and drove Ivy up the damn wall. But somewhere in all of that, the stuff that had been irritating as shit before became mildly frustrating. Then the frustrations sort of ceased too and endearing amusement crept in, followed by the one that is now the root of the problem in the first place: love. </p><p>She hadn’t meant to do it, to fall in love. It was so utterly blinding at the beginning that it had taken her by surprise. That eventually settled though and she’d had the time and space to not remember it as well. </p><p>Harley had shown up over and over again with her codependent issues and unwavering devotion to the Joker and all Ivy could do was let it rear its head again, desperately want to show Harley that she could have better if she’d just open her eyes and see it. </p><p>So she’d sat. She’d listened. She’d watched. </p><p>Ivy told herself for so damn long that Harley would always be something she could never have so by the time that Harley’s lips were touching hers, the jolting thrill of them finally connecting after countless times of just imagining them, she had no fucking clue what to do.</p><p>Which is why she offered a bluffing dismissal instead of saying exactly what she’d felt. That what she’d chalked up to crazy, spur of the moment impetuousness had been the truth escaping from a chamber of her heart. </p><p>What had Harley been thinking about in terms of their kiss? What was she going to say before Ivy had trimmed her thoughts, pared them down to nubs so the beauty of them would never be seen? </p><p>Did Harley fall asleep every night since it had happened only to dream of it again? Had she been ruined for the feel of anyone else touching her the way Ivy had as they’d held each other in a desert full of stars? Was it hard to just be in the same room without wanting to do it over and over again?</p><p>The fractions of it had fallen off of her face as Ivy had spun an even thicker web of lies. The longer it went on, the more Harley had gotten caught up in it too, so much so that she hadn’t been able to extricate herself from it until Ivy knew it was too late. She’d consumed Harley’s heart whole. </p><p>It’s the first moment in a line of many Ivy regrets. Because the beginning of forever isn’t supposed to start that way. It shouldn’t be paved with bumps and heartache and loss. </p><p>But if she could go back, take out the kinks and make the right choices, would it matter as much as it does? Would it be absolutely everything? </p><p>Ivy isn’t sure. She never will be. Because if you throw your hand in the card game of life, she knows there are no redos. No chances to try again.</p><p>It doesn’t stop her from wishing. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Path 2: Truth Amongst the Ruins of (Para)Demons </em>
</p><p>She can almost close her eyes and imagine what could have happened as she watched Gotham burn and Harley glowing like a beacon amid it all. When Harley had taken the scepter and broken it over her knee, letting go of an otherworldly power all because Ivy suggested she do so.</p><p>On the walk over to where she stood, what kind of words could Harley have been gathering in her mind to say before she’d been cut off once again? (It was Ivy’s fault the first time. Now, she supposes, it’s still her fault even though it isn’t her directly doing it—just him.) </p><p>Ivy likes to imagine what could have been said sometimes. When she is feeling particularly guilty or empathetic to the people she’s screwed over. </p><p>When she stood there as the flames turned everything to gutted and destroyed things, Ivy thinks that Harley could have done the same to her with her voice and her presence and her life force. That when she had turned those blue eyes up to Ivy, the truth would have flowed without ending. </p><p>“Look, I can explain the whole Game of Thrones/Khaleesi thing, okay?” Harley had sighed out. “All this has just been me avoidin’ something I need to talk to ya about and if I don’t do it now, it’ll be too late.”</p><p>In this version, she doesn’t say “Look, if you really need to say it…”</p><p>Because the emphasis then had been on Ivy letting Harley crack open her ribs, tear out her heart, and show Ivy what it was feeling. Not them both mutually sharing what had been at a boiling point since the pit. Nothing about what Ivy had felt for a confusing year already alone. </p><p>If she could rewrite the history of the two of them, she could have another chance at this place where they went wrong. </p><p>“Harley, what’s going on?” Ivy would say, close the distance between them and wrap an arm around Harley’s waist, trace her cheek with the pad of a thumb. She could want to know the truth, want to hear Harley say exactly what she needed to without fear of how she herself would deal in the aftermath. </p><p>“The pit,” Harley would lean forward and let their foreheads touch. “Why are you able to keep it together when all I can think about is that kiss?  About how I so badly want to do it again.”</p><p>“Just because I haven’t said anything doesn’t mean I’ve been okay. I’ve just been keeping it all in, shoving it all down and away. All this?” Ivy could point around. “It’s that way inside here.” She’d bring Harley’s hand to touch her temple, to drag down to her chest. </p><p>“God, Ive. What are we going to do? We can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep destroying the world while you destroy yourself. That isn’t how love is supposed to be. This isn’t how it’s supposed to work,” Harley would verbally slap some sense into Ivy, she knows it. </p><p>“How do I let my heart trust you when I’m so scared of losing it completely?” Ivy could admit, would admit. The truth of the ever-pressing fear, the one that’s kept her heels dug into something that isn’t as important, something that could never equal what exists between her and Harley. </p><p>There would be no interruptions, no desperate eyes, and no desperate hearts anymore. They could pour everything out into the open and finally feel free. </p><p>“Look, if you really need to say it…” stays an ellipse though, remains an omission of what Ivy should have had the courage to get out instead of what actually did: not much of anything. </p><p>If she could have just turned the fire underneath them down a little, took them from a boil to a simmer, maybe things wouldn’t have happened the way they did.</p><p>But Ivy let the bachelorette party move forward anyway, even though she could see the hurt in Harley’s eyes. What happened next? That’s where everything decided to do a swan dive, never to be the same again. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Path 3: Invisible Planes, Invisible Feelings </em>
</p><p>Themyscira happened. No matter what road in life Ivy took, it was always going to happen. Maybe not destiny but inevitably. </p><p>And maybe Themyscira wasn’t always going to be a paradise bachelorette party. Maybe it was going to be in Harley’s bedroom at the mall or the wall of some building somewhere or against the grassy surface of a place out in nature where Ivy could lay Harley down and feel life everywhere under her fingertips. </p><p>But on another path, what could have changed, what should have, was the ride home on the plane. The talk after it. </p><p>When Ivy had started, “Okay, I’ve thought about what you’ve said…” she could have said all of the things she’d meant but left out the word that yanked it all away, that negated everything she’d just said. </p><p>
  <em> —But— </em>
</p><p>Such a seemingly innocuous word, but a weighty fucking thing. Ivy could never have spoken it. She could have kept going with what she had wanted to: </p><p>
  <em> I know I’ve gone about things backward and all wrong but if you’ll give me a chance to make this right, I will. Because up until now, I’ve made all of the wrong choices and I don’t want to anymore. Because I’m tired, Harley. I’m tired of holding everyone else up while I sink lower. I’m tired of hiding how I feel and who I feel it for. So give me the time to fix things and then if you’re still willing to take a chance on me, on us, I’ll spend every day proving we can make it.  </em>
</p><p>In this alternate world with this different timeline, she sends Kiteman on his merry way and sits down on the steps of the plane to tell Harley all of this while holding her hand. </p><p>She looks into her eyes and maybe she moves a hand to her heart during some of it so Harley can press her fingers against Ivy’s chest and know it’s all incredibly fucking real instead of a fever dream. </p><p>Maybe she gets the nerve to lean over and kiss Harley after she’s said her piece. That way, the trip they’ve been on gets to hang on inside of her body and outside on her skin and she doesn’t have to get rid of it on the breeze as she’s flying away in the air.</p><p>There’s no pot of chili waiting on a counter, at least not one she has to refuse to eat. The television screen doesn’t flicker for four hours and she doesn’t lean over on the armrest of a too small couch bored out of her fucking mind. There is no temptation to text Harley or run to be wherever Harley is because they’re already together anyway. </p><p>Instead, she gets to watch him fly off for a while, for good, it doesn’t really matter. Harley and she descend the steps hand in hand, shoulders grazing and pressing as they leave the airport hanger. </p><p>Ivy follows Harley home, their fingers never untangling from one another. They make their way to the roof and sit on the edge, legs dangling off the ledge and feeling weightless against the openness. They get to watch Gotham alive below and revel in the newness of what they’ve started. Of what should have begun a long time ago. </p><p>“This is the way things are supposed to be, Ive,” Harley might say as her eyes twinkle with the city lights in them. “You ‘n’ me against the world.”</p><p>“Hasn’t it been that way for a while anyway?” Ivy responds jestfully, a small shrug lifting her shoulders. </p><p>“Small, little parts, yeah,” she watches Harley signal the amount with her fingers, watches her inch closer. “But I haven’t always been able to do this.”</p><p>And Harley takes Ivy’s breath away, yeah <em> still </em>, because she’s right. They haven’t been able to kiss and push past their lips to discover what the inside of one another’s mouths taste like. They haven’t been able to run their hands down bodies and up clothes, to let their passion be untamed and free. </p><p>They sit panting against one another, the soundtrack below them a cacophony of sirens and cars and probably a lot of mayhem too. Tonight though, they aren’t in it. </p><p>“Thank you for choosing me, Red,” Harley says with their foreheads resting against one another.</p><p>Ivy kisses her, melting all over again. </p><p>It’s a nice story about how they become who they are. Too bad it isn’t true. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Path 4: In the Control of My Mind, I’m Free </em>
</p><p>There’s something freeing in being Psycho’s pawn. She doesn’t have to think. She doesn’t have to change to act a certain way for certain people. Ivy goes where he tells her, does what he says. </p><p>But then she’s out of it, back into real life after what seems almost like a fizzling dream. There is the phantom feeling of pressure against her lips, a crackling static that Ivy knows belongs to Harley’s proximity. </p><p>While it may be a ghost, Ivy knows her best friend’s body well by now. </p><p>Harley says things like “I’m in love with you and I want to be with you” and “I’d rather risk our friendship than pretend these feelings aren’t real,” and when her incredibly heartfelt and beautiful words reach their end, it’s Ivy’s turn to speak. </p><p>In her heart, in this other vision, she doesn’t run from them. She doesn’t stop holding Harley’s hand even when Kiteman regains consciousness. She stands firm, she faces him. </p><p>“We need to talk,” she hears herself say. Harley squeezes her hand, gives her the space for the truth to set her free. </p><p>Ivy tells him what she should have long ago: that they weren’t made for the type of life he’s planning. That his big dreams are a good vision, but not one she can ever see herself in. For those reasons (for many more) she can’t find it in herself to agree to be his wife. </p><p>He soars out of the mall dejected, but still upright. The talk didn’t break his heart into. It didn’t break hers either. Somehow, they’re both still alive. </p><p>Ivy goes out back to the front of the mall, opens the door to the car waiting for a wedding that will never happen. It’s time to remake what it was for. </p><p>She reaches in her jacket pocket, types a quick message </p><p>
  <em> Meet me out front </em>
</p><p>While she waits, she admires the setting sun. Even in the haze of Gotham, it burns against a backdrop of pinks and blues and oranges. Her head is laying back on the headrest when Harley finally barrels out, a look of disbelief on her face. There’s a grin too though. </p><p>“What’s alla this?” Her Brooklyn accent slips in with the mischievousness too. </p><p>“Get in, Harls. We’re going for a drive.”</p><p>They roll around town in jovial moods. Somehow, Ivy ends up taking them through the winding maze of a parking lot at the corn factory. When she puts the car into park, the sun is setting in earnest now. It makes the pink of the car look almost red. </p><p>Both of them stare out, letting the silence envelope them. Ivy knows Harley has to wonder why they’re here. She finally finds the right words to tell her.</p><p>“My new life was supposed to begin here tomorrow,” she sighs and looks at the building with a swirl of emotions filling her body. </p><p>Harley nods but doesn’t say anything for a little while. Ivy looks down when she feels fingers lacing through her own, Harley’s body scoots a little bit closer on the open seat. She looks back at the building. </p><p>“Do you regret it?” There’s a lot to unpack with that, so Ivy doesn’t answer and Harley turns to clarify. “I mean, like...everything between you and me.”</p><p>“Everything encompasses a lot,” Ivy looks at her with gentleness in her green eyes. </p><p>Harley looks out across the lot. She speaks her words forward. “I guess I just thought that you would be embarrassed our sex tape got out. That what I said was too much and that you couldn’t feel for me what I feel for you.”</p><p>Ivy takes into account everything she’s saying, carefully picking the way she’s going to address each thing quietly inside of her own mind before it comes out. </p><p>“In Themyscira,” Ivy starts slowly. For what she’s about to say, she needs Harley’s steady blue eyes so she hooks a finger under her chin and brings them to land on her. “I wasn’t just having sex with you.” <em> You can do this. </em>“I was making love to you, even if I couldn’t call it that when it happened. I think I’ve loved you since the second you cut that plant for me in Arkham, Harls.”</p><p><em> But you were too busy falling for someone else like I’ve idiotically done for the last year. </em> But it was never like what’s shared with Harley. Not even close. It was and always has been so much more. </p><p>“What did you ever do with it?” Harley skips over literally all of the heartfelt stuff Ivy’s just poured out. </p><p>It catches her off guard. “It was one of the only beautiful things I’d seen. The only other one being you.” Ivy brings up Harley’s hand to kiss it now. “So I made it bloom, just like you had done in my heart, the stupid fucking thing I’d all but forgotten I had.”</p><p>Harley surges forward and they’re pressed together in a passionate kiss. Ivy dares to open her mouth, Harley wonderfully taking it for the invitation that it is. </p><p>Now, they can begin. Now, Ivy can have what she’s wanted since she made pink flowers blossom from the first gift she’d ever been given. Now the woman responsible for that is hers too. </p><p>The sun finally sets and they watch the stars come out when they take breaks from one another’s lips to see.</p><p>Ivy’s not sure she believes in heaven, not in a place like Gotham or out of it. But being with Harley? It's pretty damn close. </p><p>When this daydream ends, Ivy tries not to feel forlorn. It never works like that though. She always does. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> What Reality Is </em>
</p><p>But things don’t go like that. Things go the way they do. Ivy delays the inevitable, has broken two hearts by the end, and maybe even her own too as it all kept going on. </p><p>Ivy denies the meaning of the kiss at the pit, lets Harley be interrupted while parademons clog the skies, takes Harley physically in paradise but rejects her emotionally standing on the steps of an invisible plane, stands at the precipice of marriage and then runs away from it up in literal flames. </p><p>She’s nowhere important but is with the person who means absolutely everything.</p><p>In the now, they’ve had their own sunset, their own kiss as the sky was painted pastel hues. When the sirens had died but their desire for one another was very much alive. </p><p>Beneath thin sheets with nothing but cool skin between them, Ivy looks at the sleeping form next to her. It’s rare to see Harley like this, still and in stasis. Her blonde hair swirls across the pillow and her mouth hangs open a little as she slumbers. </p><p>A pleasant curl fills Ivy’s belly, caught up in remembering how they’ve come to be the way they are. How Ivy’s wedding dress is an afterthought on the floor, how she’d pulled the ties from Harley’s hair, and buried her hands inside of it. </p><p>Simply put, Harley is breathtaking and Ivy feels emotion well up at how close they came to not being right here, right now. How thoroughly ridiculous she’s been to have let it get as far as it did in the first place. </p><p>The nonstarters should have been the path taken—but they weren’t. </p><p>When it all becomes too much, Ivy can’t lay idle anymore. She wraps an arm around Harley’s torso, scoots closer, and gently lays down her head in the middle of her best friend’s back. Closes her eyes and breathes in the scent of her skin.</p><p>This isn’t exactly the way Ivy wanted to get to their forever, but it feels like they’re finally to it. Ivy can’t wait for tomorrow, excited to see where they might go. But for tonight? Tonight she’s got Harley against her and that is simply the best place to be.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>